


De Fumo in Flammam

by heartswells



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Apocalypse, Caves, Gen, Gore, Psychological Horror, Zombie Apocalypse, caving, mentions of God - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 12:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4180323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartswells/pseuds/heartswells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Out of the smoke, into the flame.</i> </p><p>For power is merely an illusion, and illusions are fragile and farcical. Humanity so long had clung to this illusion—that within their grasp was the ability to surpass disease, anarchy, death, and vengeance. Yet always, they were little more than nature's pawns and God's game. The disease had festered, anticipating its perfect eruption, and when it had detonated, humanity had cowered. Now they rotted as they walked, but a Zombie is not truly dead—just a human in its purest and ugliest form. Thus the nations prevailed in this civilized purgatory, enduring the penance of humanity's sins. </p><p>But forgiveness is rarely found in anything other than death.</p><p>[[Chapters will follow different character groupings; more characters are soon to be added.]]</p>
            </blockquote>





	De Fumo in Flammam

**Author's Note:**

> Cody—Australia  
> Rowan—New Zealand

 

Gored upon by algae and permeating with the stench of its rotting fibers, the deteriorating rope squirmed in his fumbling fingers. The weakened strands were splintering and fraying, chaffing the flesh of his palms with a wicked foreshadowing of agony soon to come.

 

Cody's bones trembled, and his broken nails snagged in the knots he struggled to tie; adrenalized apprehension turned his mind frenetic, destroying his ability to concentrate on creating dependable knots from flimsy strings. He strained to design a harness to imprison his bones from ropes that would never be long enough to support their descent—but away, away, _away_! He had to get away!

 

The scuff of his feet in the mud sent terror riveting through his veins, and the whoosh of Rowan’s breath constricted his own lungs with horror.

 

Ironic as his foes were incapable of breathing.

 

“Anchor it!” Consumed by panic, his holler exploded with a thunder that shook the skies…and awoke the dead.

 

The leaves rustled as the crows screeched their terrible, dissonant chords, and the Earth erupted in a prelude of a voracious atrocity.

 

“Fuck—go!”

 

They scrambled to dive through the opening, praying for reprieve in the foreboding unknown, and as they plummeted beneath the Earth and concealed themselves from the heavens, the cruel claws of desiccated trees tore across their skin.

 

But blindness is maleficent and only fear permitted.

 

Thus, light vanished, and the iron cruelty of darkness engrossed them.

 

The cave wall seemed to be carved by a nightmare, for it was as jagged and malicious as the wicked, sharp-toothed sneer of a monster. Coated with a viscous, earthy saliva, he maintained no steady footing or stead grasp, and his form slammed against the wall in a tango of vengeful bruises and scrapes. He cracked, twisted, and writhed—lost, lost, lost.

 

He prayed to God for relief—

 

And then his ropes snapped.

 

* * *

 

The silence had deafened Rowan with the terrible echo of emptiness; hence he did not immediately hear Cody’s rope snap. But the horrified choke that detonated from his throat as he collided with hell’s floor resounded like the crack of a bullet. In his shock, Rowan’s footing disappeared.

 

Suddenly, there was solely agony.

 

Layer by layer, the flesh of his palm was sliced raw as he slid down the rope. Blood spluttered forth as the fibers turned to blazing barbed wire, hooking, tearing, and ripping his tender skin and muscle. His life line, his heart line, his fate line—all severed and oozing blood through a frame of shredded skin.

 

Through the blessing of a clandestine, primitive instinct, he shoved his body into the teeth of the wall and felt the horrific cracking of his ankles as he clung to the relief of a protruding rock. The algae leeching upon the wall peeled off the rocks and into his open cuts and swam in his terrorized blood—pain, agony, anguish.

 

Sweat and mud dribbled down his skin and seared his eyes—more pain for a useless organ in the dark.

 

He felt his heart sliding up his throat and gliding across his tongue in merciless fear. Oh, he could feel the tender flesh squish between his teeth as the liquid of his life pulsed past his gums. Death, death, _death_.

 

The fibers of the rope had embedded in his flesh, replacing the bones and tendons that made his hands his own. Never again would his hands belong to him. A shriek gifted him the power to unfurl his fingers—oh god, _oh god._ He tore that rope out his flesh with strips of skin and blood and muscle.

 

He shivered in agony and begged God for will. Oh, this rope was hot iron, burning bright and white with vengeance and terrorism.

 

Screaming and shrieking and screeching and sobbing, he furled and unfurled bleeding, burned, and lacerated flesh. His palms he cut and burned and ripped and tore and seared and lacerated and abused, but he must, _he must_ , descend. Agony—the soul of the darkness.

 

For the only way was down.

 

For there was no god below the ground.

 

 

 


End file.
